Followership, Team Leadership and Leadership Ethics

1 Followership is associated with many negative characteristics such as being passive, having a lower status, possessing less intelligence, receiving lower pay, order-taking, providing less value, or avoiding risk. And yet, leadership, followership, and context combine to form a coherent whole. We need to start by understanding followers in the same depth as our understanding of leaders. This chapter addresses why we should care about followers and followership and how it can be explained to others.

Why Followership?

Ronald E. Riggio

When Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ira Chaleff, and I hosted the 16th Kravis-de Roulet Leadership Conference, titled Rethinking Followership, in February 2006—arguably the very first conference devoted entirely to the study of followership—we spent the better part of the first day discussing the neg- ative associations invoked by the term “follower” (Rost, 1993, 2008). Par- ticipants argued and offered a number of alternative terms—“constituent” (too political), “partner” (too relationship-py), “collaborator” (too World War II-ish), “member” (as in Leader–Member Exchange), and the like. I think at some point in order to move the discussion forward, I suggested that we should give up the search and just keep using the term “follower.” If we wrote about and studied both leaders AND followers, I asserted, the academic community, and perhaps later, the world, would accept follower and followership and we could move forward. [You can read what came out of the conference in The Art of Followership book: Riggio, Chaleff, and Lipman-Blumen, 2008].

Well, things have certainly changed in the past decade and a half. There are well over 1,000 published research articles, books, and chapters with “follower” in the title. There have been several conferences devoted strictly to the study and practice of followers and followership. And, Microsoft Word no longer tries to autocorrect the term “followership” and turn it into “fellowship.” The general public lags behind, however, because we still see people stating indignantly that “they are a leader, not a follower,” and the traditional stereotypes of followers as passive, less important, and less desirable are still common (see Collinson, 2006). But perhaps this too will

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT LEADERSHIP, no. 167, Fall 2020 © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) ∙ DOI: 10.1002/yd.20395 15

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change with time. The reality is that followers are important. They are, per- haps, more important than leaders because, without followers, leaders are out of a job.

There are three main elements that come together to construct leader- ship: the leader, the follower, and the context, broadly defined. Leave any of these out and we get an incomplete picture of leadership. We know that the leader-centric nature of most leadership research has given short shrift to the important role of followers, but attention is now also being paid to including the context, as well as the followers, in leadership research and practice (e.g., Liden&Antonakis, 2009). This triad has been popularized by Kellerman (2012), but emphasis on the role that followers and the context play in leadership dates back to Mary Parker Follett (1949) and Kurt Lewin (1947). Still, it is hard to pull away from our leader-centrism (McCusker, Foti, & Abraham, 2019; Riggio, 2019). But we must.

The Followers Have Always Been There, But Have Been Hidden

While the earliest research on leadership was primarily focused on the leader—looking at leader traits, competencies, and/or behaviors—the 1970s saw the rise of interactional theories of leadership that incorporated leader behaviors/styles and elements of the situation. For these theories, followers were simply part of the context to which leaders had to adjust their behavior in order to be effective. Situational leadership theory (SLT) is an obvious example (Hersey& Blanchard, 1977). For SLT, the “situation” is the maturity and capabilities of the followers. Leaders choose their behav- iors (directing, coaching, supporting, delegating) based on what the follow- ers require, as determined by the leader. Fiedler’s contingency theory also views followers as simply one element of the situation (i.e., leader–member relations), with the structure of the task and the amount of power and authority the leader possesses by virtue of her or his position in the organi- zation being the other two factors. Regardless, in all of these approaches to leadership, the leader is the “lever” that moves the followers to action and produces outcomes for the collective.

So-called “relational theories” of leadership, most notably, leader– member exchange (LMX; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) and transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006), focus on the relation- ship between leaders and followers, but still remain leader-centric. In each case, the leader, not the followers, is responsible for developing and main- taining the quality of the leader–follower relationship. The followers are noted, but in the same vein as situational theories, the leader’s behavior is what is central to the functioning of the collective. Even theories that purport to be “follower-centric,” and we could include here House’s (1971) path-goal theory and servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1970; Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008), are theories of leaders, not of followers.

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WHY FOLLOWERSHIP? 17

Theories of Followers and Followership

It was Robert (Kelley, 1988; 1992) who first developed a theory that focused exclusively on followers. His typology of followers drew a great deal of attention, but also criticism of the “why-would-anyone-want-to-study- followers?” sort:

Some people just flat out didn’t like it, comparing followers to sled dogswhose destiny is to always look at the rear end of the dog in front of them, but never to see the wider horizon or make the decisions of the lead dog. (Kelley, 2008, p. 6)

Ira Chaleff (1995) also developed a typology of followers, approaching it from a practitioner perspective that involved training employees in effective followership. Kellerman (2008) focused on different types of followers and the role they played in influencing leaders, while Lipman-Blumen (2006) explored the “dark side” of followers and the role they play in supporting and enhancing toxic leadership.

Social identity and implicit leadership theories shifted the focus by asserting that leader and leadership are social constructions created by followers (Hogg, 2001; Meindl, 1990; Schyns & Meindl, 2005). In social identity theory, for example, it is group members/followers who con- struct the role of leader and bestow it on the group member who is most prototypical—she or he that best represents the values, motives, and goals of the collective (Hogg, 2001).

These lines of research led to a constructionist approach to follow- ership that emphasizes the co-creation of leadership and followership that examines how people engage together in relationships to construct leader and follower identities (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012). For example, DeRue and Ashford (2010) suggest that leadership and followership are co- constructed through a reciprocal claiming and granting process, where an individual may claim the leader (or follower) role and other members of the collective grant or do not grant the role. Hurwitz and Hurwitz (2015) pro- pose a model of leadership and followership that suggests they engage with each other to create collaborative partnerships, and, as a result, produce leadership. Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien (2012) introduce the context into this process. The end result is that leadership and followership are intricately interrelated and embedded in particular contexts.

Whither Followership?

In the context of over a century of studying leadership, we are still at the beginning of followership research. There is a great deal of work to be done. In our review of followership theory and research, Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, and Carsten (2014) laid out some of the principles and concerns that should

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guide research on followers and followership (and, of course, leadership in its broader form of considering the interplay of leaders, followers, and context) moving forward. I will take the liberty of summarizing those here (and perhaps adding a bit to them):

• We need to understand follower roles and behaviors in the same depth as our knowledge of leaders. This is, in effect, “reversing the lens,” but we must do much more.

• We must understand that leaders and followers co-construct leadership in context and understand both their individual contributions and the synergies created.

• To truly understand followership, we need to consider new method- ological approaches, both quantitative and qualitative, and create new paradigms—refusing to fall into the same narrow thinking that has dom- inated much of leadership research.

• We need to think about the outcomes of leadership and followership in new and creative ways. As noted, we focus onwhat followers do as a result of leadership processes, not on collective outcomes. Moving forward, we need to acknowledge the reciprocal nature of how leadership affects both leaders and followers.

• Finally, at the theory level, we need to create new ways of looking at the process of leadership, not in the traditional sense, but in terms of a complex process that incorporates what leaders and followers do, how they influence and respond to one another, and how the context plays a role in both stimulating leadership/followership, and how leaders and followers impact the situation. The true process is fantastically complex, and our theories need to capture that complexity.

What About the Implications for Practice?

Whilemuch of the stigma associated with the words “follower” and “follow- ership” have been removed from the research literature on leadership and followership, when it comes to developing followers much of the stigma remains. While there may be an “aha” experience for many members of work organizations when they realize that followers are important elements in the leadership equation (Hurwitz & Hurwitz, 2015), there is still hesi- tance to lay down money to pay for “follower development” in employee training programs, or elsewhere. Why is this the case and what will help move us forward in follower development?

Most attempts to develop followers in the workplace focus on cultivat- ing follower behaviors that have them go beyond the normal job descrip- tion. In other words, exemplary followers are those who engage in extra- role behaviors—such as voluntarily taking on additional responsibilities (Hurwitz & Hurwitz, 2015), disagreeing with superiors’ courses of action when the followers believe they are wrongheaded, dangerous, or immoral

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WHY FOLLOWERSHIP? 19

(Chaleff, 1995), or going over and above “the call of duty.” Therein lies the problem. In many traditional work organizations, rank-and-file employees are expected to comply only with the tasks and duties that are outlined in their job descriptions. Rarely, do these job descriptions include the very extra-role behaviors that are associated with exemplary followership. In fact, human resources practices, and in the case of unionizedworkers, union guidelines, may even prohibit engagement in such behaviors. Certainly, employees who adhere strictly to the tasks, duties, and responsibilities cod- ified in their job descriptions may be satisfactory followers, but we would certainly not call them “exemplary.” So, what is needed?

From a human resources perspective, we need to change the way we look at followers. Rather than expecting employees to adhere strictly to their job descriptions (and, perhaps, engaging in “additional duties as assigned”) we should consider followers’ roles to include extra-role behaviors, making contributions to the unit’s leadership, and doing whatever is necessary to achieve the goals of the collective (“additional duties that are in the best interests of the leadership and the organization”). Indeed, research suggests that if exemplary employee behaviors, typically defined as organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs, such as volunteering for extra duty and pos- itively promoting the organization) are incorporated into job descriptions, they aremore likely to occur (Tepper&Taylor, 2003). Startup organizations and cutting-edge tech companies, such as Netflix and Google, have recog- nized that having followers adhere to job descriptions inhibits their cre- ativity and willingness to engage in exemplary follower behaviors (Peretz, 2018).

If leaders in organizations begin to view employees through the lens of exemplary followership, they will expand their expectations about what employees can and should do. This may mean not only developing employ- ees into exemplary followers, but changing leaders’ mindsets to value the critical role that followers play in co-constructing good leadership. When I talk to respected top-level executives in organizations, I am finding more and more that the truly effective leaders are beginning to understand what followership is all about. Therefore, followership development is as much about changing leaders as it is about changing followers.

We need to include followers in leadership development programs. About 15 years ago, I was invited to lead a workshop for a relatively small pharmaceutical company that was doing a “leadership training retreat.” Instead of just working with the managers, department heads, and execu- tives in the organization, the CEO had closed the doors of the company and had every single employee attend the event, right down to the front office receptionist. As he stated at the beginning of the program, “I want every- one in this company to think of himself or herself as a leader.” This CEO understood that everyone in the organization contributed to its success. This type of thinking needs to be more common. When we think of leader- ship development efforts in organizations, all too often, followers are left out

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of the leadership equation. But, let us reverse it. In the future, followership development programs could be common. Organizations might recognize the need for all employees to learn the “art” and method of followership, and that would include leaders. As James Maroosis (2008) says (channeling Mary Parker Follett), “leadership…is a partnership in reciprocal following.” Both followers and leaders need to learn how to follow well.

Another way to think about the development of followership is to focus on “citizenship” rather than “followership.” This has applicability to followers in organizations (think organizational citizenship behaviors), and to followers in politics and the community. Many of the qualities of exemplary followers are also possessed by engaged, active, and impactful citizens. For years, we helped to run a civic leadership program in our local community (see Azzam & Riggio, 2003, for a description of these programs). Participants included those whomight be identified as “leaders” in the community—elected officials, executives in local businesses, heads of nonprofit organizations—but also included were sole proprietors of local businesses, and some rank-and-file employees who were aspiring to leader- ship positions. A large part of the curriculum was designed to make them more aware of what the local community was all about, motivate them to become more engaged citizens, provide some basic knowledge about lead- ership, and foster the development of skills (persuasion, conflict manage- ment, etc.) that would serve to improve the performance of both leaders and followers.

Conclusion

There is little doubt that Western society has had a fascination, almost an obsession, with leaders and leadership. Meindl (1995) laid this out decades ago in his notion of the “Romance of Leadership.” In the wake of the corpo- rate scandals of the early 2000s and fueled by the recognition that many of the world’s most powerful leaders have been less-than-admirable tyrants or scandal-plagued, the positive glow has been taken (somewhat) off of leaders and leadership. Still, in the past half century, the study of lead- ership has grown exponentially, while followers, until very recently, were mostly ignored. This will and must change. We cannot truly understand the leadership process until we have sufficient knowledge of followers and followership. Put context into the equation, and we have a formidable task in front of us. We are clearly making some progress, but not yet enough.

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RONALD E. RIGGIO, PhD, is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and former director of the Kravis Leadership Insti- tute at Claremont McKenna College and a visiting scholar at Churchill Col- lege, Cambridge University. Dr. Riggio is a leadership scholar with more than a dozen authored or edited books and more than 150 articles/book chapters. His research interests are in leadership, organizational communication, and social competence. He is part of the Fullerton Longitudinal Study, examining leader- ship development across the lifespan (from 1 year of age and through middle adulthood). He has been actively involved in training young (and not so young) leaders.

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